Italy's Mediobanca beats forecasts with Q3 net profit

MILAN, May 10 (Reuters) - Italian merchant bank Mediobanca on Friday reported a bigger-than-expected 5 percent rise in net profit for the three months through March, boosted by growth in wealth management.

Mediobanca, whose fiscal year ends in June, said net profit totalled 205.6 million euros ($245 million) in January-March, ahead of an average 180 million euro forecast in an analyst consensus provided by the company.

Revenues grew 8 percent to a record 630 million euros.

A growing network of financial advisers and the acquisition in March of Swiss asset manager RAM Active Investment helped boost revenues at Mediobanca’s wealth management business, which the bank has been expanding under a three-year plan to 2019.

The bank also booked a strong return on its investment in Assicurazioni Generali and a healthy performance by its other major divisions, especially from consumer banking.

The adoption of internal models to calculate asset risk in the bank’s large corporate portfolio lifted Mediobanca’s core capital ratio by one percentage point in the quarter to 13.9 percent. ($1 = 0.8392 euros) (Reporting by Mark Bendeich, editing by Valentina Za)